For Italy, It Is Game Theory Over

We discussed the use of Game Theory as a useful tool for analyzing Europe’s predicament in February and noted that it was far from optimal for any (peripheral or core) sovereign to pre-emptively ‘agree’ to austerity or Eurobonds respectively (even though that would make both better off). This Prisoner’s Dilemma left the ugly Nash-Equilibrium game swinging from a catastrophic break-up to a long, painful (and volatile) continuation of the crisis. Recent work by BofAML’s FX team takes this a step further and in assigning incentives and from a ‘do-not-cooperate’ Nash-equilibrium between Greece and Germany (no Greek austerity and no Eurobonds) they extend the single-period game across the entire group of European nations – with an ugly outcome. Analyzing the costs and benefits of a voluntary exit from the euro-area for the core and periphery countries, the admittedly over-simplified results are worrying. Italy and Ireland (not Greece) are expected to exit first (with Italy having a decent chance of an orderly exit) and while Germany is the most likely to achieve an orderly exit, it has the lowest incentive to exit the euro-zone – since growth, borrowing costs, and a weakening balance sheet would cause more pain. Ultimately, they play the game out and find while Germany could ‘bribe’ Italy to stay, they will not accept and Italy will optimally exit first – suggesting a very dark future ahead for the Eurozone and with EUR tail-risk so cheap, it seems an optimal trade – as only a weaker EUR can save the Euro.

The cost of insuring against EUR tail risk, which was already in retreat even before the EU Summit, has fallen further since, is at 2 year lows.